We hand roast speciality coffee in small batches from our roastery in Ashwell, Rutland. Never heard of speciality coffee before? No worries, we will explain everything.
Speciality is the term given to a much higher grade of Arabica coffee. Much time and effort goes into farming speciality coffees. As a result of this hard work, the flavours and aromas that can be found are seriously awesome.
We source coffees from small farms and cooperatives from around the world. Some come from countries such as Brazil or Colombia. Others may come from Ethiopia or Rwanda to name a few. By sourcing from small farms, we have complete traceability for each coffee we source. Great news, as this allows us to share the stories of the farm and its workers with you, and, in turn, with your customers.
To aid, we use an importer who has a direct relationship with the farmer when sourcing new coffee. This allows us to keep the supply chain short; in turn meaning the farmers receive more for their crop. Because speciality coffee is a higher grade of coffee, and because so much love and attention has gone into harvesting, naturally it demands a higher price. In fact, we pay between 30 and 150% more for our green coffee than its commodity graded siblings. This extra revenue allows the farmers to improve living conditions if needed, and to invest for an even better harvest the following year!
Why Is Speciality Coffee Better?
As mentioned, the flavours and aromas that speciality coffees produce are amazing. Some may hold fruity and sweet flavours, whereas others may have chocolatey or nutty characteristics. You will never find two speciality coffees which taste the same. The notes found within speciality coffee are all naturally occurring. Factors such as the altitude grown and the type of varietal will contribute toward the final complexity of a coffee.
Back at the farms, when the coffee cherries are ready to be picked, they are, more often than not, handpicked. This allows only the ripest cherries to be picked. Farms that want to save money will strip pick, removing all cherries, ripe or not from the plant. Using strip picking methods usually produces commodity-grade coffee. Check out our blog on hand-picked vs strip picked coffee for more.
To be given the speciality title, a coffee must first gain a quality score of 80 points or above. This score is based on a number of the coffee’s qualities. Things such as taste, aroma and mouthfeel are judged when giving a quality score to a coffee. We only want the good stuff, so we only ever source coffees with quality scores of over 80.
Ever Changing Coffees
Sourcing our coffees from small farms and estates means our coffees are ever-changing. Once a coffee has been harvested and roasted, then all drunk, it is gone for good. Sure, the farm will produce a harvest next year, but any change in climate affects the taste of the coffee. This is one of the reasons why all coffees taste different. We see this as a good thing though as it means we all get to try new and exciting coffees from time to time! When a coffee is nearing its end, we have already sourced, its replacement. This new coffee will be very similar, but never exactly the same. For example, we may replace a coffee that had a lemon acidity with one with grapefruit acidity.
Freshly Roasted Coffee
We roast multiple times each week in small batches, assuring our coffee is always fresh. Our ethos is ‘fresh is best’, and we incorporate this into everything we can. We roast to order,meaning we never have an overflow of coffee just sitting on the shelves waiting to be sold (and going stale at the same time).
Small batch roasting is our opportunity to show off the flavours within the coffee. Depending on the tasting notes of the coffee, we may choose to roast lighter, or slightly darker. It’s worth mentioning however that we never roast so dark that our coffees become burnt or bitter. This is only done with lower quality coffees when there is a need to hide the coffee’s natural flavours. As we only source the best of the best, we don’t have to do that!
Ordering & Delivering
Running a hotel can be very stressful, with so much to remember. With this in mind, we contact you at the start of the week for your wholesale coffee order, allowing you to focus on your business while we take care of your coffee. After receiving your order, we will roast and pack. To be sure the coffee you receive is as fresh as possible; the last thing we do before packing is grind to suit the brewing device if required.
If your hotel is local to the roastery, one of the Chimps will hand-deliver your coffee. If you’re just out of our delivery route, don’t worry, we will send your order in the post with First Class Delivery. Both of these delivery options are free.
Bespoke Coffee Blend
Among other things, we offer you the opportunity to create your very own coffee blend. Come to the roastery where first, you will cup coffee to find your favourites. Wet blending is next before you name your blend. All that is left is for you to shout about your new coffee!
Coffee Training
We offer free coffee training to all wholesale coffee customers. Training ensures every drink made is correct and stays consistent. Not only is our training free, but it is also unlimited; meaning when new staff are recruited, we come to train them too. Additionally, if a refresher is needed, we can give extra training to whoever needs. Talking of free, we also offer free point of sale material too.
We like to think that we are more than just a wholesale coffee supplier. If you have any problems whatsoever, please give us a call, we are here to help in any way we can.
So what do you say? Do you want to be part of the Two Chimps Troop by serving better coffee in your hotel? Get in touch today and join the family!
Meet the chimp behind this article!
Head Chimp founded Two Chimps alongside Laura in 2016 after being self-employed from the age of 21. He caught the coffee bug from using an at-home roaster, and the rest is history!
What Andy does outside of the treehouse:
When the weather’s nice, Andy loves going on bike rides with his trusty sidekick, microchimp Felix (who always leads the way, of course). Andy also enjoys spending time tending to the family’s vegetable garden, and looking after their at-home farmyard, which includes a cat, two guinea pigs, and six chickens!
Andy says…
“I believe every day is a school day, and I’m always looking for opportunities to stick my head in a book and absorb new knowledge. I also love a problem to solve and fix – there’s no such thing as problems, only solutions.”
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